Septime La Cave

Bottles close to the counter

Bottles sit close to the counter while Bertrand Grébaut, chef of Septime, lets Septime La Cave in Paris work from a small distance: a bar across the street, fed by the same kitchen discipline. Grébaut did not arrive at this bench by the straight line. Born in Paris in 1981, he moved from graphic design toward cuisine, graduated at École Ferrandi, trained under Alain Passard at L’Arpège, then earned a Michelin star at Agapé before opening Septime with Théophile Pourriat in 2011. The wine bar followed in 2014 at 3 rue Basfroi, close enough to feel like an extension rather than a spin-off.

That matters here because La Cave does not try to become a second dining room. It takes the Septime way of looking at produce, restraint, and natural wine, then pares the service down to a glass, a plate, a table, a hand reaching for another bottle. Grébaut’s part in the place is not a nightly pass performance made visible to every guest. It is the method carried across the group: seasonal food, low ornament, sustainable sourcing, and the refusal to separate wine from the food it meets.

A cellar built by the glass

The program is the point of the room. Septime La Cave is known for natural wines poured by the glass and bottle, with about 90 choices moving through a compact cellar rather than a grand list. Théo Pourriat’s economics-to-sommelier path belongs to the founding story of Septime, and his hand is part of the group’s wine language, alongside Grébaut’s kitchen lineage. The bottles lean natural and biodynamic, mostly French, with space for Italian and Greek producers. Loire wines appear naturally in that company.

The plates stay in scale with the pour. Saucisson d’Ardèche and jambon de porcelet persillé sit comfortably beside cheese, terrine de volaille, fresh ricotta with quince jam, and marinated sardines with dried flowers. Nothing asks the room to become formal. The craft is in proportion: salt, fat, acid, glass temperature, bread on the table, the interval between a first pour and a second plate. Septime’s larger vegetable-forward discipline still shows through, especially in the way the bar treats small food as composition rather than filler.

Wood, candles, bare walls

The room keeps close to its work. Rustic wooden tables, bare walls, candles, and a local crowd make the bar feel stripped back without feeling unfinished. It is lively, but not loose. Bottles gather where a back bar would usually become decoration; here they remain tools, opened, tasted, replaced, discussed. The counter sets the pace. A server can move from shelf to table with the ease of someone who knows both the producer and the plate waiting beside the glass.

La Cave’s intimacy changes the way Grébaut’s cooking reaches the guest. At Septime, the sequence carries the discipline. Here, one plate of charcuterie or sardines has to hold its line against a living wine and a room already in motion. The exchange is smaller, but the standard is not. A glass of Vouvray Le Facteur sur le Vélo can do as much work here as a course across the street.